


what a sweet sound it makes

by saysthemagpie



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Omega Harry, Processing Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, nongraphic references to abortion, or a hopeful ending at least, the noncon is NOT nick/harry btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:39:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saysthemagpie/pseuds/saysthemagpie
Summary: Harry checks himself into a hotel room downtown when he feels it coming on. Then he calls Simon, because he can't think of what else to do, because Simon's a grown-up, because Simon's helped him before.(alpha/omega fic. past & endgame gryles, though it features long interludes of harry suffering at the hands of others. a hopeful ending.)





	what a sweet sound it makes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fruition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3544568) by Anonymous. 



> This fic is an unauthorized companion piece to a short, anonymously published Simon/Harry fic I did not write: [Fruition](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3544568), which depicts a dubcon/noncon encounter between alpha!Simon and omega!Harry. Simon arranges to get Harry into his bed while Harry's in heat, and makes him think it was Harry's idea. 
> 
> I have been thinking about this fic and craving a follow-up to it that would explore Harry's POV since I read it two years ago. I finally decided to write it myself on a long plane ride. I think it works as a standalone piece. 
> 
> NONE OF THIS IS REAL. I do not think Simon is evil or that he is controlling Harry in any way. 
> 
> Please heed the warnings and if the elements described bother you, skip it! To clarify, the noncon elements are not between Harry and Nick, and Harry is ~19/20 in this fic. 
> 
> Title is from The Decemberists' "Odalisque."

Harry checks himself into a hotel room downtown when he feels it coming on. Then he calls Simon, because he can't think of what else to do, because Simon's a grown-up, because Simon's helped him before.

"You're not to let anyone in," Simon tells him over the phone. It sounds like he's at a restaurant, maybe, people talking loudly in the background. Harry wonders if they can hear what he's saying, if they know that Simon's coming to knot him. "If I smell another alpha on you, I won't touch you. I'll leave you to get through it alone. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Harry says. "I understand." 

"Don't touch yourself either," Simon adds, an afterthought. "You'll come when I tell you to or not at all. I'll be there when I can." 

After he hangs up Harry sits on the edge of the bed and waits, resting his heavy head in his hands. He's flushed and hot all over, his shirt unbearably scratchy against his too-sensitive skin, but he doesn't undress. He isn't sure how Simon will want him. He doesn't want to seem like he's being presumptuous about what's going to happen. Doesn't want Simon to think he's a slut for it. 

_Slut for it,_ he thinks, and flushes deeper, not just from humiliation but from arousal, too. He remembers that from the first time: the way his brain had gone fuzzy, his skin crawling, everything irritating him and yet magnifying his arousal at the same time. 

He doesn't know how much time passes before he hears the gentle click of a keycard in the door. It's long enough that he can't sit up straight anymore, his stomach cramping with waves of nausea and need. He's lying curled up on his side facing the door, thighs clenched tightly together. He'd finally taken off his shirt and his jeans, unable to bear it any longer, but he'd left his briefs on, a weak gesture towards modesty. He can smell himself, the scent heavy and sickeningly sweet. 

Simon can smell it too. He pauses at the threshold, sniffing the air delicately. 

"Good boy," he says approvingly, and something in Harry, some blind, primal instinct, thrills at the praise. More slick trickles from his hole, and though Harry knows Simon can't see it he must smell that too, a fresh wave of pheromones. He flushes a darker red, but can't keep himself from rubbing his thighs needily together. 

Simon looks delighted. "Oh, you're positively gagging for it, aren't you," he says. "Well, it's no trouble. We'll get you knotted." 

Harry moans at the words, hips twitching forward a little, his stiff cock straining against his briefs. Simon's voice is doing something to him, making him quiver all over, muscles taut with need. He doesn't know if it's just that Simon's an alpha, or if the omega in him somehow recognizes Simon as his alpha: the first to knot him, the first to put a baby inside him. 

Some part of him doesn't want to want what Simon's offering, what Harry had asked him here to give him. He wants to be ashamed of wanting it, at the very least, as if that might somehow expiate his guilt. But like before, like the first time, it's as if someone's severed the connection between his conscious mind and his omega instincts. He's sunk so deep into heatspace he can't do anything but whimper when Simon sits down on the edge of the mattress next to him, not touching him, only looking at him. His arse clenches down hard, in little rhythmic pulses, clenching down around an excruciating emptiness. 

If he weren't shaking so badly he would get on his hands and knees and crawl for Simon, begging him for his fingers, his cock, his knot. He would roll onto his belly and present himself to his alpha, offering himself up for the taking. 

"You've gotten yourself all worked up, haven't you," Simon says softly. He touches Harry then, stroking over the soft pudge above the waistband of his briefs. Harry whimpers, trying to keep still. "It was the right thing to do, Harry, ringing me. The responsible thing. We both know how you get, don't we? In half an hour you'd be so desperate for it you'd be crawling the hallways, begging the first alpha you met to knot you right then and there. And then you'd be in a mess, Harry. Isn't that right."

Harry nods, his throat dry. He's hardly conscious of what he's agreeing to. Simon's slipped a hand down the back of his pants. He plays with Harry's wet, messy hole, tracing the rim with his fingertips, feeding the slick leaking steadily out of it back inside him. 

"Oh, that's lovely," he murmurs. "That's a lovely greedy hole." 

"Please," Harry gasps out, trying to rock back on his fingers. He just needs something inside him, he's so close, trembling on the edge of his first orgasm. "Please, Simon." 

"Too greedy for just one knot," Simon says. "You'll never be satisfied with just me."

"I will," Harry says, half sobbing. He can't understand why Simon won't just give him what he wants. He's going to go mad, he's going to die, he's going to shiver apart, splintering into a thousand tiny fragments of himself. He can't stop himself babbling. "I will, please, I want it. I'll be good for you, I swear. Simon, _please_." 

He breaks off, chest heaving for breath. Simon's begun easing his briefs down, and Harry thrashes a little, trying to help him, trying to free himself from the restrictive fabric.

"Stay still," Simon snaps, and Harry goes pliant and docile, as Simon peels his underwear off, working them down around Harry's knees, his ankles, and finally off, leaving him fully naked. He reaches down between Harry's legs again, behind his balls, and presses his hand against Harry's hole, letting his slick coat his fingers and palm.

"Yes," Harry sobs. "Yes, please - "

But Simon doesn't finger him, like he's expecting. Instead he wraps his sticky hand around Harry's stiff, swollen prick and begins to stroke him, using his slick as lube. Harry claws at the sheets, his toes curling, back arching into the touch. It's good, it's good, but it's not enough, and he knows he's not meant to come, not until Simon's inside him. 

"Now, Harry," Simon says, working him over slowly. "When you rang I was with a friend of mine. He's a producer, you see, a very famous producer. An American. And of course he was curious about why I had to run off so suddenly, right in the middle of dinner."

Harry groans, pushing up into Simon's fist. Simon puts his other hand on Harry's belly and shoves him back down, holding him still as he continues to wank him off. 

"I told him the truth, of course," Simon says. "I believe in complete honesty between friends. Are we friends, Harry?" 

"What?" Harry asks, dazed. 

"I like to think we are," Simon continues, as if Harry hadn't spoken. "That's why I'll be honest with you now. This man could be very important for your career, Harry. He could make us both a great deal of money. And he's exceedingly interested in you. Your career, and - well. He's never known a male omega before, he told me. Not _intimately_ , anyway." 

Harry blinks up at him. The lights are too bright, and the longer Simon touches him the more sensitive he becomes, every sense excruciatingly heightened. The air con's on but he's sweating profusely, his underarms damp, his curls matted with sweat. 

"He would very much like to get to know you," Simon says. "As a matter of fact, he's come with me tonight. He's waiting downstairs at the bar. He's eager to meet you." 

"Now?" Harry manages. 

"Yes, now," Simon says. "You'd like that, Harry. Two alphas to take care of you. Two knots to fill you up." 

He lets go of Harry's cock suddenly, letting it spring free of his grasp. Before Harry can whine in protest, Simon crams three fingers inside him. 

Harry thrashes like a hooked fish. He comes so hard his vision whites out for a moment, thick ropes of translucent omega come striping over his belly and all the way up his chest. 

Simon laughs. "You like the idea, I take it," he says. "Should I call him up, then?"

Harry blinks at him. He's only just barely come, and already he can feel another wave of heat crashing over him, stronger than the first. He feels nauseous with need. 

"Please," he says. "Can you, can you just - I need - "

"Is that a yes?" Simon's fingering him properly now, rocking his fingers into Harry's hole in a crude imitation of a cock. 

"Yes," Harry groans, past caring. "Yes, please, just fuck me, please." 

"Excellent," Simon says, and draws his fingers out, wiping them on Harry's inner thigh. The mattress shifts as he stands, walking over to the telephone. Harry half-listens as Simon murmurs instructions into the receiver, then sets it down. A few minutes later, there's a soft rapping at the door. 

The American producer is Simon's age, maybe a few years younger. He's handsome, with a full head of thick, glossy dark hair, an elegant dusting of grey showing at the temples. His teeth are very white, and when he smiles at Harry he shows all of them. He's the kind of alpha Harry might flirt with for fun across a crowded bar, exchanging heated glances over cocktails, never expecting it to lead to anything. The kind of alpha Harry would enjoy being watched by, knowing that he was wanted. 

"This is Julian, Harry," Simon says.

"Big fan of your work," Julian says. He's got a rich, deep voice, with a slight accent Harry can't place. He's staring at Harry with undisguised lust, licking his lips like he wants to devour him whole. 

"Harry, as you can see, is in heat," Simon says to Julian. "So I'm afraid he might not be the most engaging conversationalist at the moment." 

"I'm sure we can find some other use for that mouth," Julian says, laughing. He toes out of his shoes. He unbuckles his belt, snaking it through his belt loops and dropping it on the carpet. "Let's get started, shall we?" 

"Simon," Harry whimpers. The smell of another alpha the room is making the omega in him feel confused and vulnerable, in need of reassurance. Julian's scent is strong, too, a thick, musky odor that clings to him like a heavy cologne. It makes him want to curl in on himself, to prevent it from making contact with his skin. 

"Be a good boy," Simon says sternly. He's stripping off too, quickly. "Hands and knees for me." 

Something in Harry quails at the idea of turning his back on a strange alpha, when he's vulnerable and in heat. But there's a hardness in Simon's eyes that makes him scramble to obey. He gets on all fours in the middle of the mattress, his shoulders drawn in, and waits, listening to them undress behind him. 

The mattress dips. Simon's aroused; Harry can smell the pheromones he's giving off, his scent intensifying as he positions himself behind Harry, his cock slipping between Harry's arse cheeks, nudging at his hole. 

"Perfect," Simon breathes, smoothing a hand over Harry's back, and Harry relaxes instinctively into the touch. He's dripping slick, smeared between his thighs. 

"So it's true what everyone says," Julian says from behind them. "They do get as wet as a woman." 

"Wetter," Simon says, in a satisfied voice. He fits the head of his cock to Harry's entrance, rocking forward a little. Harry gasps, arching his back. "When they're in heat, that is. One of the few things omega pornography gets absolutely right." 

"Stunning," Julian says. "And he can take a knot like that, without any prep?" 

"He will," Simon says, laughing. "Better like this. He likes the stretch, don't you, Harry? Likes a bit of pain." 

He pushes forward. Harry's eyes fly open - he hadn't realized he'd shut them - and he cries out, trying to squirm away. Simon's huge, and it's too much, too soon, the pain burning up the hazy glow of his heat. But Simon's holding him firmly by the hips. He keeps him still as he pushes steadily in, Harry's sphincter clenching down hard. 

Harry cries out again when the head pops through, and then it's an unrelenting slide, Simon forcing himself deeper with little thrusts, working him open on his cock. Harry turns his face into his own arm. He bites at the soft flesh there, trying to distract himself, to focus on a different, self-inflicted pain. 

"None of that," Simon says, his voice strained but commanding. He rocks forward, one final thrust, and then he's buried fully inside Harry. It sets off a fresh burst of pleasure in Harry's brain, heat chemicals going wild. Harry moans weakly, teeth scraping wetly at his bicep. 

"Why don't you take care of our guest, Harry," Simon says. "And I'll give you my knot as a reward, how does that sound." 

Harry whines softly in his throat. He's rock hard again, and when Simon starts to fuck him properly, thrusting into him, he's so distracted he barely notices Julian climbing onto the bed, fully naked now, all pale skin and strong, sinewy thighs. He's hard, his cock massive and engorged with blood, sticking up obscenely between his legs. He settles himself against the pillows, taking himself in hand, and presses the head of his cock to Harry's lips.

Harry shies back, turning his head away. 

"Now, Harry," Simon says. "We're all friends here. Don't be rude." 

"Shy, is he," Julian says. "He's sucked cock before, surely? That mouth -"

"Simon," Harry mumbles, but Simon just winds his fingers through his curls and yanks his head back, pulling Harry upright. 

"Be good," he says into his ear, low. "Or you won't get what you want. Do you think we need you, Harry? Could leave you here, all slick and empty, and go downstairs to the bar, and we'd find a pretty omega each in under fifteen minutes. And then you'd be all alone, up here without an alpha. A heat lasts a long time without a knot, Harry. Days, sometimes."

"I'm sorry," Harry gasps, neck wrenched back at an angle that sends sparks of pain radiating down his shoulders and back. "I'm sorry, don't leave me. Don't leave me, please." 

"Then do as you're told," Simon says roughly, and lets go of him, pushing him back onto his hands and knees. Harry inches forward as best he can, with Simon still inside him, reaching out with a trembling hand for Julian's cock. 

Nick's is the only other cock Harry's ever sucked, and only once. Harry takes as much of the head into his mouth as he can fit, and tries to get the rest as wet as he can, drooling messily over the crown, using his saliva to slick the shaft so that he can work him with his hand, too. He knows to massage the base too, where Julian's knot will form. He's seen that in porn. 

He's not used to Julian's size or his apparent disregard for the fact that Harry can't fit all of him in his mouth at once without choking. He puts a hand on the back of Harry's head and bucks his hips up, groaning when he feels Harry gag around him. Every time Simon thrusts it rocks him forward on his hands, forcing Harry further onto Julian's cock. It's scary and intense and too much, and Harry's not used to it, not practiced enough not to panic. 

Nick hadn't bucked his hips up. He'd let Harry set the pace, let him explore as he wanted, even when Harry went so slowly, so hesitatingly, it must've been driving him half mad to keep still.

Don't think about Nick, Harry tells himself. There's no point, not now. 

He tries to focus, tries to lose himself again in the sensations washing over him. It works, sort of, especially when Simon says, "Ahh," and then, "yes, _there_ ," and pushes himself even deeper. Harry chokes around Julian's cock and has to pull off, steadying himself on both hands as he feels Simon's knot begin to swell inside him. He comes untouched, spilling into the sheets with a gasp. 

"Fucking hell," Julian says over his head, sounding impressed. "He can do that without a hand on him?" 

"No different from a female omega," Simon says, breathing hard. Harry can feel the wet splash of come inside him, filling up his soft insides. "Watch." 

He slides a hand under Harry's belly, pulling him upright again. The change of angle wedges him in even deeper, shifting him inside Harry. Harry collapses back against him, his skin flushed and blotchy, and Simon skates a hand over his left nipple, tugging at it, pinching it, rolling it into a stiff little peak between his fingers. Harry moans, head lolling back against his shoulder, his prick already stiff again, thrusting uselessly into the air. 

"Come for me, Harry," Simon says, lips brushing against Harry's shoulder. He twists his nipple hard, rocking his knot into Harry, and Harry does, a weaker orgasm this time, come dribbling from his slit. 

"Incredible," Julian says. "Always thought it was a bit cruel of Mother Nature, giving them pricks when they've got no real use for them. But I suppose I see the appeal." 

He reaches out and takes Harry's cock in hand, stroking it like he's conducting an experiment. Harry hisses and knocks his hand aside without thinking, too sensitive to be bear being touched. Julian seizes his wrist and, without hesitating, slaps him hard across the face. 

Harry rears back in shock and pain. Tears rush to his eyes, hot and sudden. His face burns. 

"Julian," Simon says sharply, putting a hand around Harry's waist to steady him. 

"Sorry," Julian says to Simon. He's breathing heavily, staring at Harry. He's still holding onto Harry's wrist, fingers digging in painfully tight. After a second he clears his throat and lets go. 

"It's his damn scent," he says gruffly, shaking his head. "S'too fucking strong. Drives me fucking crazy. Didn't mean to do that." 

Harry can't look at him. He curls back against Simon, trying to put as much distance between their bodies as he can. He feels dazed with shock, tears threatening to spill over. No one's ever struck him before. No one's ever spoken about him as if he wasn't there, as if he was barely human. 

"Just got carried away," Simon says easily. "Heat of the moment, if you'll pardon the pun. No harm done, right, Harry?" 

He reaches up to touch Harry's cheekbone. Harry flinches away from him so violently he feels Simon's deflating knot begin to slip free.

"That's it," Simon says, to cover up the momentary awkwardness. He puts a hand on Harry's hip, pulling the rest of the way out of him. 

"Hope you left some room for me," Julian says, in what's evidently meant to be a jocular tone. 

"I don't want him," Harry says, very quietly. "I don't want him to touch me."

He's not looking at either of them when he says it. But he can feel them both stiffen: Julian with anger, Simon with surprise. 

"Thought he was in heat," Julian says. 

"I'm not a dog," Harry snaps. "Just 'cos I'm in heat doesn't mean I'm an animal. I've still got a brain. I've still got rights, even if I'm an omega. You're not my alpha. If I say you don't get to touch me, you don't fucking touch me." 

He scrambles off the bed, half in genuine anger, half in the fear that Julian will hit him again, harder this time. 

But it's Simon, not Julian, who comes for him, striding after him and catching his arm in the doorway of the en suite. 

"You will not speak like that to him," Simon says in a low, tightly controlled voice, soft enough that only Harry's meant to hear. "You will never speak to any of my friends like that again, do you understand me?" 

"Let go of me," Harry snarls, something thrilling in him at speaking to an alpha this way. But Simon only grips him harder, his nails biting into the flesh of Harry's upper arm. 

"Do not cross me," he says coldly. "You do not want to me as your enemy, Harry." 

"I've been thinking," Harry says. "About what you said, about how I couldn't tell anyone what happened last time. And I think you're not the only one who decides what happens to us. I think there's other people who make those decisions, too. Not to mention we make you lots of money. You like that. You wouldn't jeopardize that." 

A muscle works in Simon's jaw. "Perhaps you're right," he says. "But what about your friends?"

"I just told you," Harry says. "The five of us, we'll be fine."

"I didn't mean your bandmates, Harry. I was thinking more along the lines of others. Your friend Nicholas Grimshaw, for instance. His contract's up for renewal soon, isn't it?" 

Harry goes very, very still. Only for a second, but it's long enough. 

Simon smiles. 

"Very sad, what happens to some of those former DJs," he says. "So many of them seem to wash out, don't they. Can't stay current anymore. Can't convince anyone they're worth listening to." 

"You can't," Harry says, but he's not sure. Simon knows a lot of people. He's owed a lot of favors. It's possible that he's not bluffing. 

"Of course, a few words in the right ear might not be enough," Simon adds delicately. "But if there were also rumors about, oh, I don't know. An illicit affair with an underage teen popstar, perhaps. Nude pictures exchanged, that kind of thing. That'd be a different story. That'd certainly be grounds for suspension, at the very least. Termination, possibly." 

"He's not - we didn't," Harry stammers, his face heating up. "We were just friends, back then. It was me who came onto him. And he - he wanted to wait."

They'd fought about it, that first year especially. Harry remembers the first time he'd been allowed to sleep over in Nick's bed instead of on the sofa, when he'd woken up them both up by grinding his morning wood against Nick's arse. Nick had practically flown out of bed and straight into a cold shower, locking the door behind him. 

They'd had a row about it over breakfast, Nick pink-cheeked and unable to look right at Harry, pretending to be busy moving things around in the kitchen. 

"You ought to sleep with people your own age," Nick had said finally.

"But I don't want anybody my own age," Harry said, because he figured there wasn't any point in not laying all his cards out on the table. "I want you." 

"You haven't even properly dated anyone," Nick said. "You're meant to have, like, loads of awful meaningless sex in your twenties. Your teens and twenties. Christ, Harry, you're still a bloody teenager." 

"Okay," Harry said sensibly, "but why should I lose my virginity to somebody I don't even care about, when you're here and I'm in love with you?"

Nick made a funny strangled noise at that, the way he always did when Harry brought up the subject of his virginity, or being in love with Nick. Usually when Harry mentioned that kind of thing Nick pretended like he'd got suddenly deaf, and would loudly exclaim over something else. 

Now, though, Nick just said, "I'm not going to take advantage," a bit helplessly. "I just think you're very young, and you fancy me a bit, and I - I mean, obviously I fancy you like mad -"

"I knew it," Harry said smugly.

" - but nothing's going to happen till you're older. Not till you're a reasonable age, and then we'll talk. And that's final." 

"Then I'll wank," Harry said, meaning it, but also because he liked the way Nick got even pinker when he said things like _wank_ and _bugger_ and _fuck_. "Because I'm not sleeping with anyone else. I'll wait and I'll wank. Do you think you could help me pick out one of those vibrators, like the one you've got under your bed?"

"Harry, that's private!"

"Oops," Harry said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Nick, before accidentally spilling orange juice all down the front of his tshirt. 

None of it had mattered, in the end, all those endless, circular conversations. Harry trying to wheedle Nick into fucking him, Nick trying to be honorable. Harry pretending to be put out but loving it deep down, the fact that Nick cared, that he worried. That he wanted their first time together to be special, not something Harry would regret. None of it had mattered because in the end, Harry had lost his virginity to Simon, crawling into his bed after a party one night, begging for his knot. He'd been tipsy and under the influence of his very first heat, which had come on so suddenly and so violently he had barely understood what was happening to his body, had known only that he'd die if he didn't have something inside him, if someone didn't fill him up with their seed. 

He shakes his head now, hard, looking at Simon. "Nothing happened with me and Nick. You can't have his job over to that, not when you've got no proof." 

Simon shrugs. "Probably couldn't make the child pornography charges stick in a court of law," he says. "But everyone knows that kind of thing's really tried in the court of public opinion." 

Harry looks away. His chest feels tight, clenched, like someone's got a fist around his heart. His face still smarts from where Julian had hit him. 

"Come now," Simon says, in a placating voice, like he knows he's won. He slips his hand lower, to rest in the dip of Harry's lower back, and this time Harry doesn't flinch away. "Come back to bed, Harry, and don't make things difficult." 

 

He lets himself be led to the bed, where Julian is waiting. Lets Simon urge him down on his stomach, his face pressed into the pillow. He can feel the come leaking out of him, mixing with the mess of slick between his arse cheeks. 

Julian is bigger than Simon, thicker. Harry can't relax into it, even though some part of his brain knows it'd be easier to take it if he could. Instead he clenches his jaw hard so he won't cry out, his fingers curling against the sheets. Simon places a hand against his lower back where Harry's aching and presses down, till the last bit of resistance gives way, Harry's arse loosening just enough for Julian to slide all the way in. 

"Jesus, he's fucking tight," Julian grunts. "Wouldn't have - expected it, face like that." 

"He hasn't been with anyone else," Simon says. "He was quite the innocent when I first had him. But his body knows what it needs. That first night he crawled straight into my bed, brazen as anything." 

"Wanted a knot, did he." Julian laughs, not kindly. "Little slut." 

Harry doesn't say anything. His eyes are still closed, and like this he can almost imagine he's somewhere else, floating outside his body. He can imagine it's Nick inside him, lovely Nick with his kind, open smile and his gentle way of touching Harry, like Harry was something precious to him, a thing worth treasuring. 

Not a thing. A person.

There's a lump in Harry's throat that won't go down no matter how hard he swallows around it. There's an ache in his chest that's been there for months and months, since that morning he woke up in Simon's bed, sticky and sore, alone with the cold, implacable knowledge of what he'd done.

He can't change it. Harry knows that. What's done is done. That life is gone, and so is the version of him who thought, once, that he'd spend the rest of his years with Nick, that Nick would be the only person who ever touched him like this. 

He thinks, for no particular reason, of the way Nick used to rake his nails through his curls, scritch-scratching at his scalp, laughing when Harry nuzzled into the touch. _Like a kitten, aren't you_ , he used to tease, his voice unbearably fond, and Harry would meow and rub his face against Nick's hand, secretly delighting in the thought of Nick smelling like him after. 

Bile rises in his throat, filling the back of his mouth. He has to force it down again, shuddering a little with the effort. Julian is fucking him hard now, falling into a brutal rhythm, the force of his thrusts driving Harry's limp body up the bed a little. Harry doesn't have to turn his head to know that Simon's masturbating, watching him. The sound of it is unmistakable, audible even over Julian's little grunts and the rhythmic slapping of skin on skin, his hips bumping up against Harry's arse. 

"Gonna knot," Julian says hoarsely, suddenly, and Harry feels it starting, feels the way Julian has to buck forward, cramming himself inside. 

He comes again: a purely mechanical reflex, a relief of pressure rather than an expression of pleasure. Julian is coming too; Harry can feel the cock inside him jerking, as Julian empties himself inside him. After a few minutes his lower belly starts to feels uncomfortably full, tender and swollen with come. When Simon slips a hand beneath him, feeling where his abdomen's distended, Harry makes a low, guttural noise. 

"Feel him," Simon says, and Julian hauls Harry up and back, leaning back on his haunches so that his chest is pressed up against Harry's back, Harry's legs splayed open on his lap. The change in angle makes Julian's knot shift inside him, wedging it impossibly deeper. 

"Good boy," Simon says, like an afterthought, like he's remembered an alpha's meant to praise his omega. "Look, just there." Fingers press hard against his lower belly. Harry feels Julian grunt, breath hot against the back of his neck, releasing another burst of seed deep inside him. "Too small to take a knot properly, you see. It's a sort of evolutionary flaw in the male omega. So you get that lovely bulge in the lower abdomen." 

"Fuck," Julian groans, his hand ghosting over where Simon's indicating. Harry feels him feeling the bulge of his cock inside him, pressing Harry's belly out. "How much can he take, do you think?" 

"He'll start to cramp, eventually," Simon says. "Too full. He'll already be leaking for the next two days." 

"Slut," Julian says, and it seems to satisfy him deeply, saying it aloud. He shakes Harry a little, pushing up into him. "Make him come again, yeah? Once more. Want to feel him clench up." 

Harry doesn't know who touches him then, if it's Julian or Simon, if it's both. He's got his eyes closed, and his mind is a blank, polished surface, as smooth and unreflective as marble. 

He comes, eventually. A little while after that, it's over. 

*

He doesn't get up for a long time after. He lies facedown on the bed like they'd left him, in the sticky, rapidly cooling mess he's made of the sheets. He doesn't sleep, because if he does he'll have to wake up. 

Later, he gets off the bed. He doesn't know what time it is; someone had knocked the alarm clock off the bedside table, and he doesn't bother to right it. 

He showers, scrubbing dried come and slick off his belly and thighs, washing between his legs. The scent of them is everywhere, clinging to him. He would claw off his skin to get it off him, but he's afraid that if he does he'll find it's sunk even deeper than that, permeating muscle and bone. 

He doesn't have any clothes but the ones he'd been wearing when he checked in, afraid to go home in case someone scented him out in public. Instead of getting dressed he strips the linens off the bed, balling them up in a corner behind the door, and crawls naked under the duvet, pulling it up over his head. 

He'll have to take the sheets with him somehow, dispose of them somewhere else outside the hotel. It'd be bad for the brand, as their PR reps would say: a salacious tabloid story about Harry Styles spending his heat in a hotel with not one but two older alphas. It's hard to sell a sexually insatiable omega as a family-friendly teen heartthrob. 

He's dropping, and hard. He can recognize that objectively, match up what he's feeling, or not feeling, with a list of symptoms out of the back of a sex ed textbook. Numbness. A persistent sense of unreality. Feelings of hopelessness. Low body temperature. Muscle tremors. It's part physiological response, part psychological, or maybe it's the place where the two meet: what happens to your brain when the onslaught of heat chemicals, all those endorphins, suddenly dissipates, leaving nothing but a void behind. 

Harry's all void, now. Null space. A nothing. 

Some faint instinct for self-preservation must drive him to push the duvet down before he suffocates in that hot, closed space. Some instinct for self-destruction must drive him to fumble for his mobile in the back of his jeans, pulling it up close to his face in the dark. 

He opens Nick's Instagram in an incognito window, so there's not the slightest chance of accidentally liking a photo, so there'll be no trace that he's been there at all.

Nick's in Ibiza. All his friends are there too: Pixie and George, Aimee, Daisy, Alexa. Harry clicks through to their Instagrams too, looking at pictures of the group together. They'd been Harry's friends too, for a little while, but after he ended things with Nick it had felt too awkward to keep ringing them up, and no one had tried to get in touch with him.

He's not sure what Nick's said to them about the breakup, if he'd told them the truth or made something up. Nick can be oddly private about things like that; he's proud, in his way. Some selfish part of Harry hopes he hadn't told him. He'd always wanted Nick's friends to like him - Nick's funny, brilliant, sophisticated friends. He doesn't know why he still cares so much, now. 

Nick looks good. He always looks good to Harry, but he looks _healthy_ in the most recent photos, tanned and smiling, relaxed. The laugh lines around his face have deepened. Harry's glad he's laughing. That he's happy. 

He opens his texts and scrolls past half a dozen unread messages. Scrolls down to his last text from Nick, seven months old. A lifetime ago. It's just a stupid, nothing text, Nick reminding him to pick up his favorite biscuits, but he'd signed it with two x's and a kissy-faced emoji, and Harry's looked at it so many times on tour that sometimes when he closes his eyes it feels like it's imprinted on the backs of his eyelids. 

Things had been strained between them even then. They'd had three weeks together in London before he left for the American leg. Three weeks they'd spent months planning for, all the places they'd go, the food they'd cook, the trips they'd take to see family. Instead Harry had spent the first two weeks on the couch, burrowed under a pile of blankets with Pig, watching a string of mindless romcoms and sullenly rebuffing every one of Nick's efforts to get him to talk. 

At the beginning of the third week, Nick had found the appointment notice from the clinic in Harry's pocket, and one thing had led to another, and it had ended in the first and final screaming row of their relationship. Four days later, Harry left for America. 

He can't stop shaking. He puts the mobile down next to his pillow and curls in on himself, pulling his knees up to his chest, trying to ignore the twinge in his arse. He's falling. He's falling to pieces, shaking apart, and there's nobody to put him back together again. 

"Hello?" 

Harry startles so violently he almost knocks his mobile off the bed. He swears.

"Harry?" 

"'M sorry," he says, fumbling for the phone. He holds it to his ear, hardly breathing. "Sorry." 

"Did you mean to call?" Nick sounds tired, and a little wary, but so familiar it makes Harry's chest ache. He opens his mouth to say _No._

Instead he says, "I - um. Hi." 

"Is everything okay?" 

Harry can't speak. He just clings to the phone like it's a lifeline. He makes some inarticulate noise. 

"It's not - is it Anne, Harry?" Nick sounds genuinely worried now, more awake. 

"My mum's fine," Harry says. "Everybody's fine. I'm - " He can't bring himself to say _fine_ , so instead he finishes, awkwardly, " - here." 

"Is _here_ code for drunk?" 

"No." Harry swallows, then says thickly, before he can lose his nerve, "Can you - can you, just, um. Can you talk, just for a bit. And then I won't, I won't bother you anymore." 

"Talk? About what?"

"Anything," Harry says, unable to keep the desperation out of his voice. Nick's sounding more and more closed-off, like maybe he's getting ready to hang up. Harry can't let that happen. He's afraid of what will happen to him if Nick's not there. He's afraid Simon will come back, or Julian, to hurt him without Simon there to intervene. He's afraid he'll have to be alone inside his head, alone with his own body. 

"I don't know what you want me to say." 

"Just talk," Harry says, his voice barely more than a whisper. He's trying not to cry. "Please." 

Nick hesitates. "Um. I - well, I'm on holiday," he says. "I, uh. Aimee's passed out in the bedroom, she had one too many and fell into the pool earlier." 

Harry chokes out a laugh that's mostly a sob. 

"Harry, you're kind of freaking me out," Nick says. "Where are you?"

"Nowhere," Harry says. "Hotel. Just - what'd she do, after she fell in?"

Nick pauses for a moment. "Got out again," he says finally. "Lit a cigarette and asked where we were off to next. I'm not even sure she noticed, honestly." 

Harry starts crying for real then. He covers the receiver with his hand and sobs, great heaving silent sobs, his whole body wracked with them. 

Nick keeps talking, unaware. He's warming up to his subject, falling into familiar grooves. It's what he's best at: talking for hours, making the little things that happen to him seem hilariously funny and engaging to someone who wasn't there. Making everything sparkle. Harry's barely even listening. It's just the sound of Nick's voice he needs, achingly familiar, soothing him without even meaning to. Taking care of him even when Harry's not his responsibility anymore. 

"Now you," Nick says finally. 

"Me what?"

"You talk," Nick says. "Tell me what's going on. Why you're calling me up out of nowhere in the middle of the night, after months of nothing. Why you're crying." 

"I'm not."

"You are. You have been for about five minutes now." 

Harry doesn't say anything. Nick sighs. 

"You can't call me like this," he says quietly. "Not if you're just going to shut me out again. It isn't fair, Harry." 

"I know," Harry says. 

"You slept with somebody else," Nick says. "Christ, Harry, you let somebody knock you up, and then you had a bloody _abortion_ , and it didn't even cross your mind to mention it to me." He laughs, but there's no humor in it, only a kind of desperate, barely concealed hurt. It makes Harry's heart clench. "I thought - I thought we were in love. Like, proper in love." 

Harry bites his tongue so hard he tastes blood. It's the only way he can keep himself from blurting out the words he wants to say. _We were. I am. I'm in love with you._

It might feel true, like the surest thing he's ever known, but it isn't. How can it be, when all it took was a couple drinks and a poorly-timed heat for Harry to roll over and spread his legs for somebody else. If he were in love, proper in love, he doesn't see how he could've hurt Nick the way he had. 

"I thought that's what I wanted, you know," Nick's saying now. "For you to be with other people first, and then come back to me when you were ready. When you were older. I just - I didn't know it would feel like that. No. That's not it. I didn't know you would lie to me about it." 

"I didn't lie." 

"You didn't tell me you'd had your first heat," Nick says. "You didn't tell me you were literally growing a human baby inside yourself."

"It wasn't a baby," Harry says. "It wasn't even the size of a lemon yet." 

He'd looked it up on his phone the night before he went to the clinic in New York. A week before he was due at Nick's. 

"That's not the point," Nick says, exasperated. "No, hang on, it sort of is the point. Because you love babies, okay, and you're always eyeing pregnant mums like you want to spirit them away and deliver their child yourself. And it's your body, right, I've got no problem with that bit, but what's really fucking weird to me that you wouldn't even fucking mention it, when obviously deciding _not_ to be pregnant can't have been an easy decision for you. You should've said, Harry. I wouldn't have been angry." 

He breaks off. "I'm sorry," he says, sounding frustrated. "I wasn't going to say any of this, but it's late and I'm sad and you're crying on the phone and you still won't tell me why. You won't still tell me anything." 

"I had a heat," Harry blurts out. "Another one, I mean. Today." 

He hears Nick suck in a breath. "You were alone?" 

"No," Harry says. "There was somebody with me. The same person as the first time." 

Nick's quiet. "Okay," he says. "So it - it's serious, then. With this person." 

"It's not like that," Harry says. "It wasn't like that the first time, either. It was just - he was there, and I was drunk. He was helping me." 

"He knotted you when you'd been drinking?" 

Nick sounds disgusted. Harry shrinks in on himself a little, curling in like he can shelter his heart physically from whatever Nick's going to say next. 

"I know," he says in a small voice. "I know shouldn't have been drinking so much, but I - I didn't know it was my heat. I didn't know it was going to happen." 

"Harry, that's not - no, that's not what I meant, Christ. I mean he had no business knotting you when you weren't sober. Heat's intense enough on its own, especially the first time. If he knew you were drunk and he still fucked you, that's - well, it's not legal, for one thing." 

"I asked him," Harry says. "I crawled into his bed, I was all over him. He couldn't say no." 

"I would have said no," Nick says. "Got a fair bit of practice in it, haven't I, saying no to you?"

"That's different." 

"How so?"

"Because you - " Harry breaks off. Because you love me, he thinks. Because you respect me, and you'd never dream of telling me to shut my mouth and get on the bed and be a good omega for you. Never in a million years. 

Nick must misinterpret his silence, though, because he clears his throat awkwardly. "Sorry. It's none of my business, obviously." He hesitates, then says, "You - you're upset, though. Something happened."

Something in Harry shutters. 

"It's okay," he says. "I'm okay now. I'm sorry I called so late. You've got to go to bed, probably."

"It's Ibiza," Nick says. "Nobody goes to bed. Could go the whole week without sleeping and nobody would bat an eye. Come on, popstar. I'm on good terms with all my exes, might as well add you to the list."

"You don't have any exes," Harry says automatically, and then flushes. "And we - I don't know if it counts, if you haven't even had sex. I don't know if it's real."

"Don't break my heart," Nick says. "I mean, bit late for that, but don't break it anymore than you've done already." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Don't tell me it wasn't real," Nick says. "Even if you think that, now. Even if this thing you've got now feels like the real thing. Just let me have it, yeah? It can't hurt you, letting me have it." 

Harry doesn't know what to say to that. 

It had felt real to him too. Every minute of it, every hour they'd spent on the phone or in bed together or curled up on the sofa with Pig, just watching the rain. But Harry isn't sure of anything. He's not sure he trusts himself to know anymore where people draw the lines, between who they love and who they fuck, or are just waiting to fuck, the moment the opportunity presents itself. He doesn't know how other people draw the lines between who's a person, a friend, and who's just - a greedy hole, a bitch in heat. 

No. 

He knows Nick. He trusts Nick. 

"He brought his friend with him," he says quietly. "Another alpha. I said no and he didn't care. Neither of them cared." 

"Harry," Nick says. 

"It's Simon. Simon Cowell." Harry stumbles over the words, but he says them. He gets them out. "The first time was at his house, at a party. I got too drunk and he invited me to stay over. My room was next to his. I called him tonight because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have anyone else."

There's a silence. Then Nick says, in the most frighteningly toneless voice Harry's ever heard: "I'm going to kill him."

Harry sits up in bed, the duvet sliding down round his waist. "Don't," he says miserably. "I know you're just - that's not what I need from you. Not right now." 

Nick breathes in. "Okay," he says. "Okay, I just - yeah. Tell me what you need." 

"I want to go home," Harry says. "To my house. But I - I'm afraid he's down there still, in the lobby. Not Simon. The other one. I'm afraid of him. I don't want him to see me leave." 

"All right," Nick says, like he's steadying himself as much as Harry. "All right, yeah, we can do that. Can you ring for a car on the hotel phone? Or I can do it if you want, if you tell me the hotel."

"Don't hang up," Harry says immediately, and Nick says, without missing a beat, "Right, no problem. Okay, go to the hotel phone, then. Call a car, and then when it comes I'll stay with you, all right? I'll stay on the line. We'll walk down together." 

"There's the sheets," Harry says despairingly. "I - I took them off the bed. I don't want anyone to find them." 

"There's a rubbish chute, I bet," Nick says. "End of the hallway. Bin them there, and then when you call the front desk, tell them nobody made up your bed. Or no, that'll get someone in trouble, probably. Tell them you spilled something on them and they're ruined, and you'll pay for new ones."

"They'll think it's weird," Harry says. "Won't they?"

"Nah," Nick says easily. "Famous popstar, aren't you? They're probably expecting you to like, smash all the lamps and slash open the sofa cushions, or something like that. They'll be relieved it's just the linens." 

He sounds so relaxed, so calm and capable, that Harry feels something in his chest begin, slowly, to loosen. Nick stays on the phone with him while he rings the concierge and orders a car, his voice shaky but clear. He stays on the line while Harry looks both ways out the door, and then walks to the rubbish chute with his arms full of ruined bed linens, stuffing them down. He talks to him while Harry waits, his voice gentle and light, making him laugh a little, helping him calm down. 

"I'm coming home tomorrow," he says. "I'll get a flight out first thing. Back in London by afternoon." 

"Nick," Harry says, though it makes something in him relax further, just the thought of Nick close to him. "You're on holiday." 

"You don't have to see me, not if you don't want," Nick goes on, like Harry hasn't said anything. "It's not a requirement or anything, that's not why I'm coming back. I just - I want to be there, if you need me. I want you to know I'm there."

Harry has to put his mobile down for a minute on the bed beside him, so he can cover his face with both hands. When he picks it up again, Nick's still there. He hasn't gone. 

"Those things I said," Harry says. "The day we fought. I didn't mean them. I couldn't tell you what happened."

"It's okay," Nick says, gently. "We can talk about it later, Harry. It doesn't have to be now." 

"I was so ashamed," Harry says, staring blankly at the wallpaper. "I couldn't look at you. I couldn't stand to hear your voice, because every time I did I felt so guilty I thought I was going to be sick. And I was sad. I wanted it to be you. I spent so long thinking about what it'd be like, my first time. My first heat, with you. And then I threw it all away." 

"Harry." Nick sounds sad. "He took something away from you. That's not the same thing. And listen - we can talk, we should talk, about what you want to happen next. What you want to do. But not right this minute, okay? I want to get you home first." 

Harry swallows. "Okay," he says. "Can I - you can say no, if you want, but - could I go to yours instead?” 

"'Course you can," Nick says easily. "I'll tell Collette she doesn't need to come over tonight then, yeah? Pig's there, she'll be delighted to see you. Think she likes you more than me, honestly." 

"I let her chew your socks when you're not home," Harry confesses. "Had to win her over somehow." 

Nick huffs out a laugh. "Knew it," he says. "You remember what the code is? Haven't changed it." 

"Yeah," Harry says. "You're not - you'll stay with me till then, right?" 

"I'm right here. I’ll be right here, for as long as you need me. Till I step on that plane tomorrow morning, if you want.” 

Harry stands up. He fixes his gaze on the door that leads to the hallway. 

“I’ve got you,” Nick says in his ear. “I’m with you. Whenever you’re ready.” 

Harry closes his eyes for a moment. He opens them again.

“I’m ready,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> come talk / yell at me for hurting your fave on [tumblr.](http://www.saysthemagpie.tumblr.com) EDIT: on tumblr hiatus, pls visit me on [dreamwidth](http://saysthemagpie.dreamwidth.org).


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